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Topic: Dragon-Lords (Read 14540 times)

Fantasy's take on dragons has never been up to the standards of power and majesty I have imagined. The dungeons and dragons movie had them as animals, dragonslayer had theirs as a tyrannical beast, dragon heart had him as a misunderstood fugitive.

Dragon-lords are a large step above any other type of dragon previous. Their powers are near godlike and their vunerabilities few. A limited number exist, merely one for every day of the moon's cycle. Each dragon-lord hatched from thier egg on a different phase of the moon and under that phase has the ability to reach for extra insight, gleaning wisdom as a seer. Also under thier birth moon, dragon-lords are vunerable to damage, but even then only by powerful magics. The dragon-lords will not lightly let this knowledge circulate, even to those rare persons they believe can harness the power to strike at their foes. Immune to aging is not invunerability and the weakness of thier birth moon is their only chink in never ending life.

Of the the thirty-one dragon-lords, only five have passed on. One to a juvenile war on his neighbor, the attacking dragon-lord sought to use the insight of his birth moon to aid him in his campaign, he instead was the first dragon-lord to discover his weakness. Four others fell in a war with demons. The demons came to feed off the emotions and powers of the creatures of the plane and found the dragon-lords an undying source of food for them. The dragon-lords were ignorant of their weakness, except for the slayer, and passively watched the demons destroy all life around them, smiting any demon fool enough to pester them. When the demons ran out of life to eat, they turned en masse to the dragon-lords. The smiting became a bore and some of the dragon-lords holds were breached. Immune to the demon's ministrations, the dragon-lords sought to outlast them with patience. At least, untill the first dragon-lord with an invaded home saw his birth moon in the sky. Four dragon-lords fell to the demons before the remaining could form a pact and unite thier magics into a spell to banish all the demons back across the planes.

The dragon-lords watched this genisis-apocolypse several more times, as life evolved and was raised up to sentient beings, only to be wiped from the face to the planet as the planar tides swept the demon's dimension close enough to the dragon-lord's for them to cross. The demons are only interested in the forces of living beings and have left the relics of the ages to rot in thier wake. It is in the ghosts of these lost civilizations that the current seintient beings found salvation. A scholar of the past discovered the approaching plane of demons, but it was to late to save them. The humanoids discovered his writings and approached the dragon-lords in a plea for shelter.

The dragon-lords responded in various manners, some were benevolent, teaching the humanoids the ways to craft the defenses the dragon-lords used to safegaurd their holds while asking only for thanks in return. Some were tyrants, demanding slaves and blood sacrifices and only offer to shelter the beings that would serve them in their holds, not wanting to share their power with anyone. It was in this capacity of saviors to all the races that the dragon-lords truly became lords and allowed any creatures besides themselves to survive an apocolypse.

Some of the dragon-lords of note:

Phorse - A volcano dragon-lord seemingly risen from the lava, he has yellow and orange mottled eyes and a body covered in the black scales of a lava flow's crust. He is the only dragon-lord to slay another.

Sandin - A geyser dragon-lord, the only dragon-lord to be slain. Had a body made of flowing mist and steam.

I could really use some help thinking of other dragon-lords. I have an idea for a forest dragon-lord that looks like a redwood tree, but that's still only four out of twenty-seven. In general I was gonna have the dragon-lords born under a waning moon be "good" and those under a waxing moon be "bad". I thought a blind dragon-lord for the new moon would make a great kind of prophet for all the dragon lords, but I don't have any good ideas what to do with the full moon.

I'm also stuck on anything better to call the girl dragon-lords than dragon-lady.

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I agree with your view that dragons are never depicted how you would expect. Your statements are dead on. Give me a wise, old, respectfully, insanely powerful dragon that no Warrior, let alone an army could even hope to defeat. They should live on their own time and rarely would the existance of man even be worth a glance. Like us and roaches, they are around. We deal with them, but if they come near us we squash them or hire Orkin to destroy them all. Lets see how close a human settlement can get to a dragon home before it starts the extermination.

Dragon queen has a nice ring to it though. As for wyverns, I was gonna make them as close to dragons as we are to goldfish. They will fill the flying scaly beastie quite nicely. A dragon-lord might have one for a pet, but mostly only an evil dragon, and it's always just a thing it could gulp down on a bet.

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The dragon-lords watched this genisis-apocolypse several more times, as life evolved and was raised up to sentient beings, only to be wiped from the face to the planet as the planar tides swept the demon's dimension close enough to the dragon-lord's for them to cross. The demons are only interested in the forces of living beings and have left the relics of the ages to rot in thier wake. It is in the ghosts of these lost civilizations that the current seintient beings found salvation. A scholar of the past discovered the approaching plane of demons, but it was to late to save them. The humanoids discovered his writings and approached the dragon-lords in a plea for shelter.

The dragon-lords responded in various manners, some were benevolent, teaching the humanoids the ways to craft the defenses the dragon-lords used to safegaurd their holds while asking only for thanks in return. Some were tyrants, demanding slaves and blood sacrifices and only offer to shelter the beings that would serve them in their holds, not wanting to share their power with anyone. It was in this capacity of saviors to all the races that the dragon-lords truly became lords and allowed any creatures besides themselves to survive an apocolypse.

Finally had time to *really* read it and I love this entire idea. The story you writing based on this? Sort of has the "wheel turns through the ages" feel about it, but in itself it is entirely unique. Leaves the option to start at any time frame you could want and you can also justify pretty much any ancient whatevers. Rarely do some adventures have the "why is this here" explained and this idea just nicely ties everything together and answers all those questions.

Now the characters are in the time frame where this ancient knowledge has been found and it us up to them to track down and try and convince the Ancient Dragon-Lords to intervene once again on the behalf of mortals. Do they find the right dragon to ask, or did the pick a meany.

In the process finding any number of ancient cities buried in the rumble now inhabited by pretty much anything you can think of. Other beasts from other planes that shift close enough and dump them there. Perhaps a demon or two that got stuck and are biding their time till the return, but still won't deal with an intrusion on their claimed area.

I just love all the freedom it gives you!!

Interested in sharing this one with the Citadel. I like this as an overall history of the world for the interactive City we will get around to creating. The City that will eventually expand, as Manfred so eloquently explained.

The whole idea is loosly inspired by Earthdawn, put out by FASA, now either wizkids or fanpro. In Earthdawn, dragons taught the neccesary spells to some wizards of a slaver empire and they used them for leverage to enslave the world in the chaotic time before the demons really cut loose. While civization hid in ensorceled keeps, revolts and anarchy let some of the people gain freedom. When the planes didn't drift apart like everyone had planned, some of these free people opened their doors to the outside early and united a nation to stand up to the slavers. When the slavers came out as schedualed, they found thier frontier in arms against them. Since the planes are still kinda close, some smaller demons can cross over, but nothing that can move mountains.

I took the good ideas Earthdawn presented and have mixed in some stuff from Dragon Storm, Final Fanasty and some other sources with a dash of my own ideas for flavor. I hope it doesn't make me too much a hack.

I was thinking of setting some adventures in the chaotic time when civization learns of the coming apocolypse and stuggles to find shelter from it, and some adventures after the apocolypse when the world is still raw and bleeding from the treatment. The ages between disasters will be vast, long enough for life to rise anew, so some of the relics from previous cylces may be from species very much alien to humanoids. Artifacts from other ages could be almost anything imaginable, although the presence of dragon-lords keeps ridiculous notions like nukes or other doomsday devices out of reach. When a dragon-lord says "not in my back yard" they also turn the offending item/party into powder.

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Possible Names (To whichever): Gssantran, Tsynne, Orlo, Dysslra, Ervos, Rathran. If you need more names, look in The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien, (no, the ones before are my own, not Tolkien's) such as Illuvatar. As for the nature of the dragons themselves, lets see...

How about a:

Earth-realated Dragon Lord

Crystalline Dragon Lord

Underword Dragon Lord (GRRRR UR SOUL IS MINE!)

Light

Darkness

Zeus-like

Mist

Combustion? (BOOM) (this guy won't last long)

What about a second nature dragon, only this is like weed-vine type. As for appearance, think of a construct of vines

Blood

Telekenetic

Time-manipulating

Invisibile

Bone

Telepathic

Oceanic

Stone

Steel

The list goes on and on.Maybe they are demigods, Who can tell?

Also, Telepathic. Telekenetic, you know, the mind-related stuff, can be on the new moon, like the prophet.

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My idea was to make them much like gods made flesh. As for having more than one drgaon-lord per moon phase, like the new moon, that was going to be a campaign in it self. For the start, each dragon-lord hatched from it's egg on a different moon phase. Only one dragon for each phase of the moon. Gods made flesh are more impressive when they are few in number. Hundreds of dragon-lords would be an imbalance of chaotic propotions as there would be hundreds of beings with the power of gods.

The dragon-lords are not omnipitent, that is such a cheap card to play in role-playing, but thet are very much near to all powerful. Such power takes time to master, and being unaging and all but invunerable, the time to contemplate how to use a power before it is actually used is irrelavant.

The hook for the campaign for more dragon-lords, tenitively titled rise of the dragon-lords, was that although the dragon-lords have all this great power, they are ingorant to how to creat more dragon-lords. In short, they don't know how to get jiggy.

That isn't really all that surprising when you take a look at things from thier perspective. They started life at the crack of their shell fully aware and competent, no potty training needed here. But they were a isolated generation. They had no parents. They covered the globe with their influence and power, but can find no superiors, no elders. A generation of orphans. With no one to give them the birds and bees lecture, the power to create is alien to them.

The PC's come in when a dragon-lord approaches them to help solve the mystery. Who better to consult than the collection of species that are continually dying off and creating themselves anew?

I need to iron out a couple small details before I launch that campaign, like why do they need the new dragon-lords so much? Is there a massive surge in magic building that will let the whole of the demon's plane cross and the current number of dragon-lords can not banish an entire plane with out more to help? Is there some other threat killing off the remaining dragon-lords?

Also, how are the pitiful species that are the PC's going to be able to solve the puzzle that the powerful dragon-lords haven't been able to solve in millenia[/i] with thier limited knowledge? I have a fantastic idea for the soulution for dragon-lord jigginess, but how to be able to find the answer is difficult.

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Ah, so that's like, hm, about, 8 dragon lords, and then, part of those are dead. After all, there's The new moon entering waxing/waning , same with the full moon, then the 1st and 2nd quarters for both the waxing and waning parts. Of course, you might divide it up further, which I strongly suggest.Ah, but wate! you said 31! Also, what phase of the moon is each one?

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Well, a moon on a fantasy world could have any number of phases, depending on how fast it was orbiting around the planet, but everything is so much more convienient when it's at least close to earth-like. So, that gives us somewhere around 28 to 31 phases.

The full moon, the new moon, waxing half moon, waning half moon, waxing cresent, waning cresent, waxing gibbous, waning gibbous, and then three shades in between the named phases. That means between new moon and waxing cresent moon, there are three nights the moon rises with just a bit of a sliver on it's edge.

I haven't nailed down exactly how many dragon-lords there are, just how many have died. There's a reason this is in the "Flesh it Out" section after all. The final number will depend more on how many dragon-lords I am happy with, as opposed to some hard data.

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Perhaps one of them was actually killed by humans. Yes, that nuclear weapon. It would take quite much for them bugs to attract attention, but killing one of THEM would be a reason to repeat the End Of World.

So now the mighty dragons have this little demonic problem, and the intelligent pest that sems to occur sooner or later. Solution? Let the Cycle begin! After some time, let a few demons enter this reality to feast on all living, then banish them back or destroy. This presents of course numerous problems some dragons will ignore or risk, some will not. So don't provoke any dragon, it may indeed bring Apocalypse upon us all.

Quite the reason for ambivalent feelings toward humans: they are usually the weak ones, something to be protected. But if left unchecked...

It is in the ghosts of these lost civilizations that the current seintient beings found salvation. A scholar of the past discovered the approaching plane of demons, but it was to late to save them. The humanoids discovered his writings and approached the dragon-lords in a plea for shelter.

Thinking of this, what about undead in this world. Sure a bad bad thing, but may make fine fighters against the demons. Those consuming life may choke on its opposite.

May also be THE way to survive the Apocalypse.

Not only for humans, there's also the hated Undead Dragon the demons were never a menace for. Would you ask this one to help you survive?

This is just astronomical nonsense. You surely won't use it unless your story mutates into a trilogy or worse. As I won't get rid of certain ideas until I write them down, here it comes. Ignore freely.

The lunar phases are merely the way one sees the moon from a certain place. There is nothing magical about it. But maybe, unce upon a very long time...

There was a planet, rich with magic, having its place in the universe. Somewhat later a smaller body approached, to become its companion, to leave it alone, or to destroy it. As it came near, great magical powers came into existence, drawing both bodies nearer and repulsing at the same time. The powers came fast to an equilibrium, making the smaller body the moon and changing the planet itself on the spot where it was nearest to the moon at the moment of the magical discharge. The flow of magic in the planet got a bit unstable.

The moon made his round, the discharge happened again. This time it took longer to stop, and on another place. So it happened over and over, till the whole planet had a ring of changed material, corresponding to the path of the moon over it. It was in this ring, where all the dragons awaked, there where the remains of powers concentrated into eggs.

You may ask yourself why there are only so much dragons, not 100 or 1000 or a more? Easy to theorize, theirs number is same to the number of days, or more exactly nights. All of these events happened at nights over the respective places. Maybe the sun disrupts the magical flow, who knows...

Conclusions:- it may not be true the dragons hatched at the same time, nor that they are about the same power level. But it can be, it's magic.- the ring they were born in is their natural living space, where they feel comfortable- they must stay in the ring for the most time. Not only does it get uncomfortable outside of the living room, but they also channel the remaining magical forces that still flow between the planet and the moon. If there are too few or too many in any part of the ring, the moon could just float off or destroy the planet, literally. Talk about responsibility!- they are essentially prisoners, with only short times to go where they please. So they cannot be much social even if they want, and must cooperate with others even if they don't want to either. - the dragons may actually grow weaker if they leave the ring- the ring they live in is a magical location, place where humans can access magic easily. But few dragons tolerate this.- creation myths might be a re-telling of what really happened, something about meeting of two gods in the emptiness, and after a conflict falling in love, etc...- speaking of mythology, imagine for a while that the planet and/or moon themselves were living or even sentient entities...- the moon has a mighty impact on magic, in many ways. Maybe all people's powers change with the moon's phases.- the night was always more associated with magic and unntatural happenings. Illusion at day, magic at night. The sun could hamper it through day.- the movement of the moon is a constant through all the ages, except for a few extreme situations- the dragons surely found a way to communicate across vast distances. Say it is like...A chat-room!The apprentice tries for the first time the spell of Read Minds on a little rabbit. Unfortunately, he just stands on-the-line between two angry dragons. "Seems like he likes that carrot" he smiles. Suddenly there flies a thought heavier than a bulldozer and splatters him : "Shut up!" A fit of epillepsy at 16. Life is hard for magic-users. - it is hard to learn about humans, even if you can fly around the world in a day: You get many sights, but few insights.

Hrmmm. Dragon-lords which are all but gods made flesh being restricted. Nope, can't say I like it.

Now as a way for thier companions and servants being made, THAT would be cool! It could still be going on. Imagine seeing a ring around the moon, a strange ring, like the northern lights chasing each other around in a circle. A bizzare fog rises up, filled with motes of light that seem to be alive, some slowly spinning in the air, moving like floating down moved by a gentle, invisible breeze, others suddenly darting quickly, leaving lond streaks of light in the fog, some motes pulsing like a beating heart. The fog itself filled with odd scents and feelings, thicker in places, sometimes clings to the skin with wiffs of unidentifiable flowers at times, at times feeling like lightning will strike. Suddenly a great bolt of energy leaps from the moon to the planet and strikes something.

A new servant for the Dragon-lords has been born.

Have a kind of "moon storm" would be a great way to have really bizzare things happen outside of the average fantasy day. Maybe not every moon storm strikes something, but the build up of magic makes things go a bit wacky. Rivers run backwards, Plants grow at an alarming rate, stones begin a kind of whale song, some really odd happenings.

The undead aspect and undead dragon opens up some great possiblities.

An evil Dragon-lord demanding human sacrifice for his shelter during the apocolypse, turns the sacrifices into mummys or other powerful, non-draining undead to use as servants and tools.

A rift between the dragons as they struggle to thwart the first apocolypse. After the first three dragon-lords die, a fourth dragon lord sees his moon start to rise. Rather than suffer mortality at the hands of usurpers, he uses his power to travel beyond death to undeath, becoming a Dracolich. Perhaps the other dragon-lords came to late or were unaware his lair had been breeched, but having to quit life because of the scourge the rest of his peers so convieniently avoided would surely make relations rather cold.

Free roaming undead would be very well immune to the demons, some of the more intelligent might even join or lead some of the demons.

Magic that only works at night sounds like a great idea for a whole seperate game world. Illusions during the day, and only real magic at night. Daylight could break any spell, and perhaps moonlight could make normally fanciful spells real. DarkSpell: the new game world! It would force most mages to learn some illusions, or just waste good spell to the daylight. Magic items would only last through the night unless they were stored away safely. Drow chain, anyone?

I am opposed with hampering the dragon-lords at all, but your post did have some great points and ideas to expand on.

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It is not that dragons were suddenly an easy kill, they just get slightly weaker, too tiny a bit for anyone else to notice. I wanted it for a certain reason: dragons roamed the whole world, as much as they wanted. But since they tasted their mortality, they do it less often. The years pass and the world changes. (See the Tolkien-esque theme: the world is less interesting then it was before. )

But for the servants, yes, it must be true. It is also a sign: any fantastic creature has a special phase of moon, that clearly shows who its master is. Remember werewolwes and their phase...

Not all are all-time servants, more like free creature that but cannot resist its master if he calls. Might be possible with wizards, that have all their own phase too. Such a wizard would be mightily influenced, would he meet "his" dragon. Not as a slave (a dragon can turn anyone into its slave), but this mighty creature is so overhelming and wonderful, that it is a honor to serve.

Or it has no phase, meaning that somehow it gained freedom, or was granted it. A solitary creature, the powers of a werewolf, but less limited with the moon... no good.

Your spells are not lost at day, they just become special effects. Oh, only the faster ones: the longer to cast, the more probably to break down and fizzle into the air. A fireball looks nice and warms up the air somewhat, charm spells give a much weaker version of the effect desired, turn to stone lets you feel slightly stiff for a while. I think sooner or later would alchemists come upon means to conserve their potions during day. This all means that lasting items are VERY costly, and wizards would research spells to imitate magical effects. Sword that can hit magical creatures is a one-night effect only, or a mighty artifact of some sort.

Hmmm, Darkspell...Any planned dungeon crawling with a magic-user becomes a dilemma: do it at day, when most of those monsters are weaker, or risk the night, with arcane support?

This would be common knowledge. So those angry peasants would not wait till it is night, just for the burning torches look better, no, certainly not.

Moon-storms. The ideal time for gathering great magic. Pity that it is the time when magic behaves most freely.

Sunlight dissolves magic. That is the reason for Undead being damaged by it: they are simply magical. It is not for some Sun's holy power's, so Turning Undead possibly does not exist! Is more a question for gods. Oh, do the gods exist? Or do people at least worship some? Not all dragons may want to be worshipped, not all would allow people to worship someone else.

Ha! Finally made the connection:This world would certainly have its share of problems with Undead. This world would surely welcome a way to get rid of them, in any way. For more details see Undead World.

in the palladium rpg fantasy they have something call the dragonwright they are this dragons are so powerfull they coul destroy al the world hehehe (im just too crazy abotu this dragons they make me mad)

the dragons are kym-nark-mar symbol of wisdom power and magickormath also known as kormeth ,or korameth ( this confussion has to do with the translation of archaic elven texts.) symbol of peace , tranquility and lawzandragal symbol of war and all those aspects of war involve cunning,duality and conflict (the selfish one)

styphon my favorite symbol of death and pestilence

this dragon is so cool that he is in all the story books in the palladium world not only on the fantasy it also appears on rofts nightbane i all he is a dimensional god or something like that he is the great styphon the black the one that destroy and rebuild the church of dragonwright and the only evil dragon that one time has compassion for the humans and help them to rebuild theri civilization (the porblem was after they rebuild their civilization the he start to have fun woth them but thats another story) styphon the black styphon the great bless us under your unholy black wings and guide us thru the battle in the midnight when we will cut all the heads of the infidels of our church the church of the black rose..

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the new gods of palladium have arrive you can run and hide but soon you willl die.

in the palladium rpg fantasy they have something call the dragonwright they are this dragons are so powerfull they coul destroy al the world hehehe (im just too crazy abotu this dragons they make me mad)

the dragons are kym-nark-mar symbol of wisdom power and magickormath also known as kormeth ,or korameth ( this confussion has to do with the translation of archaic elven texts.) symbol of peace , tranquility and lawzandragal symbol of war and all those aspects of war involve cunning,duality and conflict (the selfish one)

styphon my favorite symbol of death and pestilence

this dragon is so cool that he is in all the story books in the palladium world not only on the fantasy it also appears on rofts nightbane i all he is a dimensional god or something like that he is the great styphon the black the one that destroy and rebuild the church of dragonwright and the only evil dragon that one time has compassion for the humans and help them to rebuild theri civilization (the porblem was after they rebuild their civilization the he start to have fun woth them but thats another story) styphon the black styphon the great bless us under your unholy black wings and guide us thru the battle in the midnight when we will cut all the heads of the infidels of our church the church of the black rose..

...Dude. Palladium dragons are weak, in comparison to the rest of the Palladium "Megaverse".Then again, Palladium is the Power Gamer's Wet Dream.

Anyhow... A few suggestions:

The Full Moon Dragon Lord (or Queen):The Platinum Dragon, with a mercurial temper, fierce curisoity, and a burning desire to know things that are hidden. Probably has a fondness for inventors and their ilk - if gnomes exist and happen to be the tinkerer sorts, this guy probably was the one who sheltered them during the last "Swarm" from the Demon Plane...

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"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

Another odd thought - what about one Dragon Lord who was born balanced "between" phases? At the moment when the lunar balance was shifting from one focus to the next. Perhaps he has no power beyond his size and strength - but no real weakness, either. And he might be better than half-mad - the two signs he was born between tugging at his mind, gradually destroying his sanity, until the other Dragon Lords finally put him under an enchantment to sleep the ages away.

Maybe that mountainside there is really the Moonless One, waiting to awaken again. And maybe he's the one who stands the best chance of fighting off the demon invasion - with no moonsign to weaken his lifeforce, he might be a Draconic Hero - or a really nasty villain, if he turned against his brethren for putting him to sleep...

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"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."